This is a wonderful piece of writing - while I never knew this specific community, it really captures the feeling of a certain age of the internet, and what it was like on those kind of small forums. It reminds me of reading the fanlore wiki, but less dry, and closer to my own experiences.

I'm not sure the decline of the site can really be solely blamed on any individual moderation policy or bad decision - it could hardly have escaped the influence of the broader environment. Small forums seem to have had their day, but maybe a few years down the line we'll get similar nostalgic recollection about people's tiny discords... only much harder to archive and look back on.